‘Tis the Season to be Festive

The American Declutterer and her husband have just celebrated our third Christmas in our permanent home — the home I’ve been decluttering of the detritus left behind by my husband’s deceased first wife since shortly before our first Christmas together.

That first Christmas season — my first extended visit to our home and before we’d permanently moved me in — my husband asked me to try to “make some sense of” all the Christmas stuff in the storage area. That decluttering episode consisted of sifting through unsorted heaps of wrapping materials, used and unused; stashes of generic gifts, those received and those being saved for eventual disbursement; countless partially used boxes of greeting cards; and enough lights, wreaths and baubles to decorate three homes, inside and out. I was too timid to discard anything so that year I sorted, packed and labeled boxes and bagfuls of possibly useful materiel.

By our second run-up to Christmas we were moved in and the shoveling out of our home which is described in earlier posts was well-underway. I returned to the sifted and sorted mountains of Christmas stuff and bravely consigned much of it to the dump, or hauled it to be recycled or, to my great joy, was able to contribute the excess decor and trinkets to the community rummage sale which benefits our county public library.

This year when it came time to set up the tree we could find, easily, the boxes of decorations we wanted to use. As we settled down to write Christmas cards, within minutes I located a carton full of unused cards which were deemed usable. But the best symbol of progress was that by the time my husband and I had finished wrapping gifts, two tubes of the historically acquired festive wrapping paper had been exhausted and their cardboard cores put out in the recycle bin.

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Author: American Declutterer

I've had three careers, moved among thirteen states, and cleared four houses after loved ones moved on. Sometimes you just have to look at all the stuff and laugh. Then get back to discarding.
View all posts by American Declutterer